Resistance training is important for increasing and maintaining muscle strength, and for increasing bone density. To maximize muscle development, it is necessary to repeatedly contract the muscles to failure along a full range of movement, contracting and stretching the muscle. At the point of failure, a spotter must aid the lifting party to complete a desired number of repetitions along a positive range of movement, which are commonly referred to as "forced repetitions." In addition to forced repetitions, negative or eccentric contractions are also important for maximizing muscle growth. Rather than moving against resistance, the negative or eccentric contraction is resisting a weight slowing moving against the muscle. Unlike positive movement, which facilitates muscle contraction, negative movement is a stretching of the muscle. Like forced repetitions, negative repetition requires a spotter to help the lifting party move the weight along the positive range of movement after each negative repetition. Optimum muscle growth is, therefore, best effected by a variable resistance-training regimen of forced and negative repetitions. Because most people train alone, finding a spotter to help with forced and negative repetitions is not always possible.
To solve this problem, skilled artisans have devised a variety of resistance training devices that provide assistance to the lifting party along the positive range of movement. Although adequate, known resistance training assist devices are difficult to construct, expensive and cumbersome. Accordingly, the continued need for new and useful improvements in the art of resistance training assist apparatus is evident.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that provides assistance to a lifting party along positive and negative ranges of movement.
It is a purpose of the invention to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that is easy to construct.
It is another purpose of the invention to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that is relatively inexpensive.
It is still another purpose of the invention to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that is easy to use.
It is a further purpose of the invention to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that is programmable.
It is still a further purpose of the invention to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that is safe.
It is yet still a further provision of the invention to enhance muscle development by providing a resistance training apparatus for automatically relieving resistance as needed to permit a user to complete positive and negative ranges of movement.
It is another purpose of the invention to provide new and improved resistance training apparatus that is dependable and adaptable depending on user needs.
It is still another provision of the invention to promote strength training.
It is yet still another provision of the invention to prevent muscle and skeletal injury as a result of improper or unsupervised resistance training.